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Sermon

Jesus Offers Living Water

Speaker
David Capoccia
Scripture
John 4:1-14

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In this sermon, Pastor Dave Capoccia begins examining the account of Jesus and the Samaritan town of Sychar in John 4:1-42. John presents the account of Jesus and Samaritan Sychar so that you will not miss out in dead religion but join humble outsiders in finding eternal life in Jesus. In John 4:1-14, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well and offers her living water.

1. Jesus Offers Living Water (vv. 1-14)
1a. Jesus Arrives Weary at Jacob’s Well (vv. 1-6)
1b. Jesus Breaks Barriers Requesting a Drink (vv. 7-9)
1c. Jesus Has Better Water than Jacob (vv. 10-14)

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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

The gift of God is freely available to all who believe: Jesus offers living water that becomes an internal spring, satisfying the soul forever. Through the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well in John 4:1-14, we are reminded that every earthly source of satisfaction — relationships, accomplishments, material pleasures — will leave us thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water Jesus gives will never thirst, because that water is the experience of knowing the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.

Key Lessons:

  1. Jesus intentionally breaks social and cultural barriers to bring the gospel to those considered unworthy — no one is beyond his reach or beneath his concern.
  2. Every earthly source of satisfaction is a broken cistern that will leave us thirsty again; only Jesus provides water that truly and permanently satisfies.
  3. The living water Jesus offers is not merely a gift external to us — it becomes an internal spring, the indwelling Holy Spirit, leaping up to eternal life.
  4. Dead religion that affirms true ideas about God but never experiences God personally is not the abundant life Jesus offers.

Application: We are called to stop drawing from the broken cisterns of sin, pride, and worldly pleasures and instead drink deeply from the living water that Jesus freely offers. This means believing in Jesus for real, receiving his Spirit, and pursuing genuine knowledge of God rather than settling for mere religious formality.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What “broken cisterns” in your life are you tempted to draw from instead of finding your satisfaction in Christ?
  2. How does Jesus’ willingness to cross social barriers with the Samaritan woman challenge the way we relate to people who are different from us?
  3. What is the difference between dead religion that affirms true ideas about God and the living, abundant experience of knowing God that Jesus describes?

Scripture Focus: John 4:1-14 — Jesus offers the Samaritan woman living water that becomes a spring within, leaping up to eternal life. Jeremiah 2:13 — God is the Fountain of Living Waters, and forsaking him for broken cisterns is folly. Isaiah 55:1-2 — God invites the thirsty to come without cost. John 7:37-39 — Jesus identifies the living water as the Holy Spirit. John 17:3 — Eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ.

Outline

Introduction

Let’s go before the Lord in prayer. We now look to hear from him through his word.

Oh Lord God, you are the Fountain of Living Water. That’s the beautiful truth we’re going to talk more about today. God, I pray that you’ll help us to see this in such a clear and fresh way.

Lord, I pray that you would show yourself to us. Show Jesus to us, show him in all his beauty, show him to be so satisfying. Oh God, I pray that we indeed would move away from the things that are not profitable, that are sinful, that are just broken cisterns.

And God, we would see: oh, there is such refreshment, there is such satisfying water in you forever. Lord, open my mouth to declare this truth from your wonderful word, and open our hearts to listen and apply it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The Value of Good Water

Some of you may know that my wife Emma and I got to go on a study trip to Israel last year. A wonderful privilege, a great opportunity. We went in May, which is the beginning of the dry season there, but it’s just before the really hot months of June to August.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any hot days for us there in May. Indeed there were. One hot day was when we went to the ruins of Gezer on the western side of the territory of Benjamin.

It was late in the day. We had done a short hike up to the site and had toured and listened to our professor teach for about thirty minutes. When a few in our number started to feel sick, we found that hills in Israel often got a nice extra breeze from the coast, so it would feel a little bit cooler.

There was no breeze on the hill of Gezer that day. The combination of the beating sun, the slightly humid air, and temperatures above one hundred degrees—we didn’t realize that until later—was proving too much for our group. Some were not feeling well.

Thankfully, we were able to find some respite in an ancient cistern amid the ruins of Gezer. A cistern is a water collection space, and there were some stairs that went into it. It was shaded and cool.

But you couldn’t go down too deep into the cistern because of the noise of all the bats and the stench of the bat guano. We only went a certain way. But after resting there for about a half hour, we were able to get back into our air-conditioned bus, which had arrived, and we headed back to the hotel.

By God’s grace, everyone in our group turned out fine. Surviving Gezer became one of the things that we joked about and even celebrated. We ribbed our professor a little bit about it.

Nevertheless, the experience at Gezer did make us all take more seriously the instruction our professor would give us every time we were about to get off the bus in Israel and look around for an extended period. He would tell us: you must make sure to take some kind of filled water container with you, and you must drink from it preemptively before you start to feel overheated.

And if you don’t have a water container or you run out, there are cool bottles available for your purchase at the front of the bus for a shekel or two.

See, we came to appreciate just how critical water is for our health, even for our lives. Though we were willing to settle for subpar water if we couldn’t find anything else, we sought out the best water we could find: water that was cool, clean, and pleasant tasting.

“We came to appreciate just how critical water is for our health, even for our lives.”

Really, the experience of desiring good water in Israel became a way for us to connect to the Bible. Because even more than we did, the peoples of the Old Testament and the New Testament knew the importance of good water, the value of good water.

And they didn’t have air conditioning, refrigeration, bottled water, or modern plumbing. Yet they needed water to live, especially in a land that is frequently hot and dry.

God as the Fountain of Living Water

It’s no wonder that the ancient peoples prize good sources of water like wells and springs. And it’s also no wonder that water, even springs and fountains, become metaphors in the Bible for that which gives life, joy, and refreshment.

“Water, even springs and fountains, become metaphors in the Bible for that which gives life, joy, and refreshment.”

God himself is likened to a fountain of good water in contrast to false or polluted sources of water. You heard one example of this concept in the passage we read earlier in the service: Jeremiah 17:1-13.

But let me give you two more passages, both spoken in the Bible by God himself through his prophets, using this metaphor. You don’t have to turn there, just listen.

Jeremiah 2:13.

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Jeremiah 2:13: “They have forsaken me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Isaiah 55:1-2 additionally says: “Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.”

In the Gospel of John, we’re going to see this water metaphor appear again. This time it emphasizes something true about Jesus in contrast to all apparent sources of thirst-quenching in the world.

Jesus gives living water that becomes within the drinker of it a spring springing up to eternal life. Now, what does that mean? To whom did Jesus declare this? And how should it affect us today?

That’s why I want to explore with you together this morning. Please open your Bibles to John 4.

Reading: John 4:1-26

John 4:1-26. We’re going to read verses 1 to 26. The title for today’s message is “Jesus Offers Living Water.”

Pew Bible page 1061 if you are using the Bibles that we provide here.

The next section of John goes beyond what we’re going to read just now. The next section goes from verses 1 to 42 in chapter 4. But that’s a lot to read.

For the sake of time, we’re just going to read verses 1 to 26 and examine verses 1 to 14 in the sermon today. You’ll get some important context going up to verse 26. But we’re going to focus on 1-14 today.

Here’s John 4:1-26.

“Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John—although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were—he left Judea and went away again into Galilee.

And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob’s well was there.

So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink,’ for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

Therefore, the Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, being a Jew, asked me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.’

Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’

She said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water?

You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you? Who gave us this well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle.’

Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst.

But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’

The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here.’

The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’

Jesus said to her, ‘You have correctly said, “I have no husband,” for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.’

The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people, the Father seeks to be his worshipers.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’

The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming. He was called Christ. When that one comes, he will declare all things to us.’

Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’”

The section we read is beautiful and famous. All the way down to verse 42 is wonderful.

Parallels with Nicodemus

But something you may have noticed, even in our reading up to verse 26, is that this passage features both repetition and contrast in a number of details we’ve already seen in the Gospel of John, especially the conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.

For both Nicodemus and this Samaritan woman, we see a conversation in which Jesus graciously reveals God’s salvation to just one person. This is an individual conversation.

“Jesus graciously reveals God’s salvation to just one person. This is an individual conversation.”

In both conversations, Jesus’ explanation of this glorious salvation is at first misunderstood. Yet the persons to whom Jesus has these two conversations couldn’t be more different.

One is Nicodemus, the highly respectable man, a Jewish Pharisee, religious teacher. The other is a social outcast, an uneducated Samaritan woman.

Furthermore, the difference of outcome in these two conversations is quite striking. Nicodemus and the Jews of Jerusalem do not move beyond their tepid belief in Jesus.

But not only does the Samaritan woman end up believing, but she becomes an instrument leading many Samaritans in her town to also confess that Jesus, the Jew, is the Savior of the world.

Now, this parallelism and contrast is not accidental. This is purposeful from the author to make a point.

Main Idea of John 4:1-42

Here’s how I would put together the main idea for this next section in John 4:1-42: John presents the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Sychar so that you will not miss out in dead religion, but join humble outsiders in finding eternal life in Jesus.

John presents the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Sychar so that you will not miss out in dead religion, but join humble outsiders in finding eternal life in Jesus.

“Do not miss out in dead religion, but join humble outsiders in finding eternal life in Jesus.”

Now, in exploring verses 1 to 42, I’m going to take us through in three parts—one each week. In each of those parts, I’ll give you subheadings as we go along.

Today is the first part. The title I gave you is “Jesus Offers Living Water.” It’s verses 1 to 14.

Jesus Arrives Weary at Jacob’s Well

But what’s our first subheading for this section? Well, that’s 1A: “Jesus Arrives Weary at Jacob’s Well.”

Jesus arrives weary at Jacob’s Well. Now let’s look at this, and we’ll move through these 14 verses starting with verses one to three.

“Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John—although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were—he left Judea and went away again into Galilee.”

Why Jesus Left Judea

All right, this next section of the Gospel begins with an announced change of scenery. Jesus is moving from wherever he was in Judea, going up north towards Galilee.

We get the reason for the move right in verse one. The Lord—that is, Jesus—he knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus’ disciple-making and baptizing ministry was starting to supersede John the Baptist’s.

“This next section of the Gospel begins with an announced change of scenery.”

We heard all about that development in the previous passage, John 3:22-36, which is why verse 1 begins with “therefore.”

But why would the Pharisees hearing about Jesus’ expanding ministry cause Jesus to move? We can’t say for sure, but likely Jesus wanted to remove himself from new hostile scrutiny of the Pharisees and also prevent those Pharisees and other Jews from having any more reason to dismiss the ministry of John the Baptist.

Why Jesus Didn’t Baptize Personally

So Jesus makes a move. Note that we learn as an aside in verse 2 that Jesus himself was not the one baptizing, but he was having his disciples do it.

Now, why is that? Well, we don’t know. Perhaps doing so simply freed up Jesus to preach, or perhaps this was part of training his disciples.

Most likely, though, Jesus did this to forestall any kind of prideful misunderstanding later among his disciples about what it would mean to be baptized by Jesus’ own hands.

Can you imagine some of the disciples feeling pretty special about themselves? “I was baptized by Jesus himself.” The same issue seems to be something that Paul wanted to forestall in his own ministry.

We hear him telling the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:14-17 that he was glad that he baptized so few of their people personally, so that no one would boast about it and it would become a source of division in the church.

What’s important, Paul emphasizes, and in a way Jesus does too, is not who baptized you, but the fact that you were baptized. And even more important than that is the gospel that you believe, which is then symbolized in your baptism.

“What’s important is not who baptized you, but the fact that you were baptized — and even more, the gospel you believe.”

So they put the emphasis on preaching, and baptism had secondary importance. Jesus leaves Judea and heads toward Galilee.

Passing Through Samaria

But how is he going to get there? Well, let’s look at verses 4 to 6.

“Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob’s well was there.

So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.”

Notice the phrase “had to” in verse 4. This is the New American Standard’s translation of a Greek word that we’ve seen a few times in this gospel already. This is “dei”—d-e-i—meaning “must,” “have to,” or “it is necessary.”

In what sense was it necessary for Jesus to pass through Samaria to get to Galilee? Well, no doubt part of the answer is simply practical. The shortest route to get from Judah into Galilee was to go north through Samaria.

“In what sense was it necessary for Jesus to pass through Samaria? The shortest route to Galilee was north through Samaria.”

Samaria was the name of the capital city—what eventually became the capital city in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the divided kingdom period in the Old Testament. That city’s name came to refer to the surrounding region of the city and even the whole northern kingdom.

By the time we get to Jesus’ day with the Romans in control, the Roman province of Judea’s northern section was called Samaria. That’s the region.

Samaria was also the place in which Samaritans lived, and they did not have a good relationship with the Jews, as we will discuss shortly.

So going through Samaria was the shortest route to Galilee. But might Jews have avoided Samaria if they could and find some other way into Galilee?

Relations with the Samaritans aren’t good. Well, there was another main route to Galilee in the east, but it was much more arduous. You had to go down into the Jordan River Valley, cross the Jordan, and then go up on the other side.

Then you traveled north for a bunch of ways, and then you had to do the same thing—crossing back over the Jordan. This is not like some tiny little valley. It’s rather arduous to go by foot down and up a valley twice.

Not to mention, when you are going north, you’re going to pass through the region of Decapolis, which was a heavily Gentile region. And how do Jews feel about Gentiles? Gentiles are icky too.

So it’s kind of pick your poison. You can go through Samaria and have to deal with the Samaritans, or you go through the eastern side of the Jordan and have to deal with the Gentiles.

Well, might as well just take the shortest route. The ancient Jewish Roman historian Josephus says it was customary for Jews, if they wanted to go from Judea to Galilee or back again, to just go through Samaria. They didn’t like it, but that’s what they had to do.

The Divine Necessity of the Route

Jesus, wanting to save time and energy, also had to pass through Samaria. But is that the only reason?

Well, just as it was necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up like Moses’s bronze serpent, just as it was necessary for Jesus to increase and for John the Baptist to decrease, so it was necessary for Jesus to go this way to Galilee because God the Father willed that his Son would have a profound conversation with a certain Samaritan woman on the way.

That conversation is recorded for us, so that we too might behold Jesus’ glory and believe in him.

“God the Father willed that his Son would have a profound conversation with a certain Samaritan woman on the way.”

The Setting at Sychar and Jacob’s Well

Now, in verse 5, we read about the specific place that Jesus and his disciples stop in Samaria: a place called Sychar. This apparently was an unimportant town. It’s not mentioned anywhere else in the Old Testament or New Testament.

The details given in the passage show us that Sychar was near ancient Shechem. Shechem was a really important town in the Old Testament, and a lot of important events happened there.

But it had diminishing importance by New Testament times. It may not have even existed, or it could have been replaced by Sychar.

Probably Sychar sits at the modern site of Askar today. There’s a little town called Askar—sounds very similar in name—and it would have been in the same place that Sychar probably was.

Askar is a little town just on the edge of Mount Ebal, on the route between Jerusalem and Galilee.

Now, Sychar would have indeed, as we read in verse 5, been near the plot of land that Jacob bought for himself in Shechem, which you can read about in Genesis 33:18-19. It also would have been connected to the plot that Jacob gave to his son Joseph in Genesis 48:22.

And it would have been close to the feature that’s mentioned in verse 6: Jacob’s Well.

Now, interestingly, the Old Testament does not mention anything about a well belonging to Jacob in or near Shechem. However, since Jacob did live in Shechem, he very likely did dig a well there because, like I said in the beginning, you need water in these days.

Now, Shechem already had a number of springs around it. So why did Jacob dig a new well? Those springs were probably already taken. Different tribes or persons were saying, “No, this is our water. You have to go get your own.”

So Jacob dug his own well. And Jacob’s Well still exists today as a long tradition through the medieval period and even up to modern times. It’s just half a mile from modern Askar.

It currently sits in the crypt of a Greek Orthodox church, and it still produces good water because Jacob’s Well is fed by a natural spring.

Really, the word for “well” in verse 6 is more commonly translated “spring,” though in verse 11, we do see the word for a dug-out well. So what we’re seeing—this water feature, Jacob’s spring—was really a dug-out well fed by a spring.

And it definitely would have provided good water and been a valuable resource in the ancient world.

“Jacob’s Well is fed by a natural spring. It still produces good water and would have been a valuable resource.”

So Jesus and his disciples arrive at Sychar. But Jesus doesn’t initially enter the town. Instead, he sits at the well—Jacob’s Well—outside of the town.

Now, why is that? Well, because Jesus is tired. He’s wearied from the journey that they’ve taken thus far. After all, we’re told it’s the sixth hour, which is around noon.

So the day must be getting hot. Like any true human—and Jesus is a true human—Jesus is tired from walking under the sun. So he sits down to rest at this well.

Jesus arrives weary at Jacob’s Well, and the stage is now set for a glorious gospel encounter.

Jesus Breaks Barriers Requesting a Drink

We arrive at our second heading now for this first part, and this covers verses 7 and 9.

1B: “Jesus Breaks Barriers Requesting a Drink.”

Jesus breaks barriers requesting a drink. Look at the first part of verse 7.

“There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.”

A Woman Who Comes Alone

I’ll just stop there for a second because if we are ancient persons, this information given at the beginning of verse 7 should cause our antenna to go up. Not the fact that a Samaritan woman comes to draw water, but the fact of how she does so.

She comes alone, which is not usually what women at that time did. Drawing water was considered women’s work back then. If you’re a woman tasked with this work, you might as well make it a little bit more enjoyable and do it with your female friends and relatives.

All go get water at the same time so you can talk along the way and on the way back. But this woman hasn’t done that. She doesn’t come with any of her friends. She comes alone.

“She comes alone, which is not usually what women at that time did.”

Also, she comes at the sixth hour of the day, which is unusual. Drawing and carrying water is hard work, so most women did it when the day wasn’t so hot—either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day.

But this woman comes in the middle of the day, amid the day’s heat.

Finally, we’ll read later that this woman is from Sychar, which, if Sychar indeed is where modern Askar is today, is a half mile from Jacob’s Well. You can track that distance, but there were closer springs and other closer sources of water.

This woman didn’t have to come all the way to Jacob’s Well. So why does she? Does she just prefer the taste of this particular water, or is there some other reason? Maybe a reason that she would want to avoid anybody that she knows, anybody who lives in her town and where they normally go for water?

The Shock of Jesus’ Request

Well, certainly the situation in verse 7 is starting off strange, and then it gets even stranger. Let’s look at the rest of verse 7, going all the way to verse 9.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink,’ for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

Therefore, the Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, being a Jew, asked me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.’”

In verse 7, Jesus makes a request of this Samaritan woman: that she would use her water pot that she’s brought to give him a drink from Jacob’s spring.

From one angle, this request makes perfect sense. Jesus is tired. It’s hot. He’s thirsty. Verse 8 tells us that Jesus’ disciples have all left him to go into Sychar to buy food.

That means there’s no disciple around to assist the rabbi, and he doesn’t have a water pot himself. So Jesus asked this woman who just happened to arrive: “Hey, would you give me a drink?” Makes sense from one angle.

From another angle, this does not make sense. This request is shocking, as the woman herself points out in verse 9.

She doesn’t say yes or no to his request for water, but instead: “How? How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman?”

“This request is shocking. She asks: ‘How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman?’”

The end of verse 9 gives the explanation for any of John’s unfamiliar readers: “For Jews do not have dealings with Samaritans.”

The History of Jewish-Samaritan Hostility

If you’ve read the New Testament gospels before, you know that Jews and Samaritans do not like each other. Have you ever asked yourself why? The answer is a centuries-long history of rejection, hatred, and injury.

In 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, centered in Samaria, fell to the Assyrian Empire. A serious policy for dealing with conquered peoples was to resettle them outside of their homeland so these people would be less likely to rebel.

When the kingdom of Samaria fell, most of the ten and a half Israelite tribes living in that kingdom were resettled elsewhere in the Assyrian Empire. But not all of them were resettled.

Some of the ten and a half tribes were left behind. Then Assyria brought in other conquered peoples and settled them in the area of Israel’s previous northern kingdom, Samaria.

When different peoples live side by side for an extended period of time, these left-behind Hebrews began to intermarry with the new arrivals, who were pagan Gentile peoples.

This intermarriage not only muddied the bloodline of the ethnic inheritors of Canaan, but it also introduced heinous syncretism into Samaritan religion. The new people of Samaria sought to serve Israel’s God, Yahweh, alongside the pagan gods of the intermarrying Gentiles.

“Intermarriage introduced heinous syncretism — Samaria sought to serve Yahweh alongside the pagan gods of the Gentiles.”

The Hebrews of Judah, the southern kingdom, began to see the people of Samaria—Samaritans—as fundamentally impure.

Consequently, in 538 BC, when the people of Judah returned to Judea from exile in Babylon and wanted to rebuild God’s temple in Jerusalem, some Samaritan nobles showed up and said, “Hey, we’d love to assist in the construction because we serve the same God as you do.”

But the Jews knew that Samaritan worship was corrupt, and they rejected the offer. They said, “You have no part with us.”

You can understand the Samaritans were not very happy about that. The insulted Samaritans then harassed the Jews throughout the temple reconstruction process.

Even in post-exile times, relations between the Jews and Samaritans got off to a very bad start. But it only got worse in the inter-testamental period—the time between the writing of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

By the time of Alexander the Great, Samaritans had given up polytheism and returned to worshiping only Yahweh, the God of Israel. But Samaritans rejected most of the Hebrew Bible, believing only in their slightly altered version of the Five Books of Moses, the Torah.

They believed this alone was God’s true and authoritative word. Consequently, Samaritans rejected the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which is supported by the rest of the Hebrew Bible, not necessarily the first five books.

They came to believe that God’s true chosen site for sacrifice and worship was on Mount Gerizim, near Shechem. This was because those two sites seemed to have such prominence in the Torah.

Abraham builds an altar on Mount Gerizim. The blessings that Israel recites once they come into the land are spoken from Mount Gerizim. So they said, “This must be where God wanted us to worship him.”

Sometime between 400 and 300 BC, the Samaritans even built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. You better believe that annoyed the Jews, who were zealous for God and zealous for the temple in Jerusalem.

Fast forward to about 140 BC. The Jews in Judea, under the Hasmonean dynasty—the descendants of the successful Maccabee rebels—had broken away from Greek rule and established a new independent Jewish kingdom centered in Jerusalem.

Though at first it was just Jerusalem and the surrounding area, this new Jewish kingdom gradually expanded. It conquered the surrounding regions, including the rest of Judah, Galilee, and Samaria.

That conquest of Samaria involved the killing and enslaving of many Samaritans. And as if that weren’t enough, the Jewish kingdom’s religious policy toward conquered peoples was forcible conversion.

The Jews tried to force the conquered Samaritans to adopt Jewish religion and customs. The message was clear: you’re going to worship our way or else.

The Samaritans resisted. The Jews, under the Jewish king at that time, destroyed Shechem and destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. This was around 111 BC.

But that still didn’t bring about a breakthrough in conversions. The unhappy Samaritans kept right on worshiping on their mountain, even without their temple.

The bad blood between the Jews and Samaritans was well established and continued right into the Roman period, where Jesus appears.

Not every Jew hated Samaritans, and not every Samaritan hated Jews. But generally, these people were hostile to one another and suspicious of one another.

The Jews saw Samaritans as hopelessly corrupt, and the Samaritans saw Jews as oppressive evildoers.

With all this background, you can understand the Samaritan woman’s shock at Jesus’ request. He asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, even a drink from her water jar.

The Jews don’t have dealings with Samaritans. Actually, that word translated “have dealings with” in verse 9 is literally “use together with.” Jews do not use together with Samaritans.

It could have the sense of “use the same utensils as” or “share the same food dishes.” There’s good reason to take that translation because, after all, we see in verse 8 that Jesus’ Jewish disciples went into the Samaritan town of Sychar to buy food.

They’re having dealings with Samaritans there. But to share the same utensils, the same plates, the same water jar? Jews just don’t do that. That’s a good way to become unclean.

Add the fact that this is not simply a Samaritan that Jesus is asking for water, but a Samaritan woman. A popular idea among Jews at the time was that Samaritan women are perpetually unclean—menstruals from the cradle, as one rabbi later put it.

No wonder this woman is shocked at what Jesus says. She knows what Jews characteristically think of someone like her.

Jesus’ Heart for the Outcast

She asks him: he asks her to drink from her water jar. Jesus is not like other Jews, is he? It’s not like other rabbis. He thinks differently.

And isn’t this beautiful? Does this not show the wonderful heart of our Savior and God? He’s not afraid to break taboos and cultural barriers for the sake of God’s kingdom.

He is happy—he wanted the Father and affirmed the dignity of every single person made in God’s image. Far from shying away from people considered unclean and irredeemable, Jesus went towards such people in love to make them truly clean from the heart.

“Far from shying away from people considered unclean, Jesus went towards such people in love to make them truly clean.”

Is Jesus not worthy of adoration? Is Jesus not worthy of imitation?

Jesus breaks barriers requesting a drink. But he doesn’t stop there.

Like a skilled evangelist and a compassionate soul winner, Jesus quickly moves from talking about physical refreshment to something more significant.

Jesus Has Better Water Than Jacob

We come to our last heading for part one, in verses 10 to 14.

1C: “Jesus Has Better Water Than Jacob.”

Jesus has better water than Jacob. Look at verse 10.

The Gift of God and Living Water

“Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, “Give me a drink,” he would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’”

The situation just gets more and more surprising, doesn’t it? First, Jesus, the Jew, asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. But now he offers her a drink and assures her that if she only realized who she was, she would have asked him, and he would have gladly given it to her.

Now, what is the gift of God Jesus mentions here? Most likely, Jesus is referring to the gift of salvation, eternal life, available by grace through all who believe in him.

Don’t we as Christians sometimes feel, as Jesus says here, with the people around us? “If only you knew. If only you knew about the gift of God that was freely available to you.”

“If only you knew about the gift of God that was freely available to you.”

Now, take a look at the key term at the end of the verse: “living water.” Living water is a term with which ancient people would have been familiar because living water is what they called running water or flowing water—like water from a spring or a river.

Living water, you see, is the opposite of what they call dead water, what we would call stagnant water—like water from a cistern or pond.

If you had a guess: which is better, living water or dead water? Living water, because living water is constantly flowing. It doesn’t get the dirt, the bugs, the other pollutants building up in the water.

Cistern water, that dead water, it might be all right if you have nothing else. Spring water, living water, that’s where you can find real life and refreshment.

So Jesus is essentially telling the Samaritan woman: “I’ve asked you for living water from this well, this spring. But I tell you, if you knew who I am and what I’ve got, you would have asked me for living water, and I would have given it to you.”

The Woman’s Misunderstanding

Give this response only confuses the Samaritan woman. But notice how she replies in verse 11.

“She said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water?’”

You see what she’s thinking? Like Nicodemus in John 3 and the Jews in John 2, she misunderstands the figurative nature of Jesus’ words and thinks he means to give her literal living water.

“Like Nicodemus in John 3, she misunderstands the figurative nature of Jesus’ words.”

At first, she points out he can’t mean that he would give her water from Jacob’s Well since Jesus clearly has nothing to draw with and the well is deep. It’s actually over one hundred feet deep and probably was even deeper in ancient times.

So she concludes that Jesus is offering living water from another source—maybe a different well or spring. Thus, she asks: “Where then do you have this living water? Where do you get the living water?”

That she doubts Jesus has what he claims comes out in what she says next in verse 12.

“You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you? Who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle.”

This is the question that expects a negative reply: “You’re not greater? No.”

Jacob, as one of the patriarchs represented in the Torah, was revered by the Samaritans. They accepted the first five books of Moses, so they loved Jacob.

Jacob indeed was pretty great. As she points out, he found this great spot for a well right on a spring, dug the well, and then used the well to provide for himself, his sons, and his animals. That’s a lot of living water from one source. Good job, Jacob.

So she poses the question to Jesus: “If you’re not going to use water from this well, do you have a better well that you’ve dug out that can provide more and even better water? I doubt it.”

Now, the exact tone in her question is unknown. She’s saying this with curiosity, sarcasm, playfulness. It’s not enough evidence to say for certain, but we can say that she has some doubt in her question.

Water That Satisfies Forever

She expects that Jesus is not greater than Jacob and does not have better water. Imagine her surprise at Jesus’ reply in verses 13 to 14.

Affirming the opposite, Jesus answered and said to her: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. But the water that I will give him will become in him a well springing up to eternal life.”

John 4:14: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but it will become in him a well springing up to eternal life.”

Jesus first points out that, as good as the spring of Jacob’s Well is, all its drinkers will thirst again. Everyone who drinks of this living water from this well will be thirsty again. No exceptions.

And by the way, the same is true for any of you today who are looking to drink from sin or the vapid treasures of the world. Everyone who drinks of the water of prideful accomplishment will thirst again.

Everyone who drinks of the water of romantic relationships will thirst again. Everyone who drinks of the water of material pleasures will thirst again. You will be thirsty, thirsty, thirsty until you die.

Whatever that particular treasure or source you’re going to is, you’re going to keep having to lug your water jar, so to speak, all the way to your chosen source of satisfaction in life. All the while, the hot sun is beating down on you, and you’re never truly satisfied. And you won’t be saved.

But there’s another water source that you could go to instead. And Jesus says it’s available to all.

“Whoever,” Jesus says, “doesn’t matter who you are, doesn’t matter what your background is, what you’ve done. Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst.”

And I love the way the Greek expresses: “He will never thirst.” More literally, the text says: “He will not not thirst forever.”

You see the double negative in Greek? It’s not like the double negative in English. In English, if you use a double negative, those two negatives cancel each other out. So if you say, “I am not not tired,” well, that means you’re tired because you’re not not tired.

But in Greek, the double negative doesn’t work that way. It’s used for extra emphasis, extra certainty. In other words, Jesus says: “There is absolutely no way that anyone who drinks from his water will ever be caught thirsty or unsatisfied again. Never, not for all eternity.”

Why not? Is the drinker satisfied with just one gulp forever? Well, look again at how Jesus explains in the last part of verse 14.

“But the water that I will give him will become in him a well”—or better, a spring, because it’s the same word used back in verse 6—”it will become a spring of water springing up to eternal life.”

Do you see how this works? It’s not that the person coming to Jesus suddenly never has a desire to drink again. Rather, he has a new source to drink from that’s always there to satisfy him.

And this source is not external. It’s internal. It springs or leaps up with incredible liveliness inside of him to quench his thirst again and again and again.

Jacob’s Well has got nothing on this kind of living water.

What Is the Living Water?

The big question now is: what is this living water? What is this living water that Jesus offers? This water that continually satisfies a person forever and results in eternal life?

We don’t see a specific explanation in the immediate context, but the rest of the chapter and the rest of the Gospel are going to make the answer clear.

What is Jesus’ life-giving water? It’s God. It’s God, or more specifically, it is the experience of knowing the Father by the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Did not the Old Testament proclaim that God himself is the Fountain of Living Water? He doesn’t just give living water. He is the living water.

“God himself is the Fountain of Living Water. He doesn’t just give living water. He is the living water.”

Jesus will say in John 7:37-39: “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

Then verse 39 explains: “But this he spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believe in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Jesus will also say in John 17:3. I hope you’re memorizing this verse by now, by how many times I’ve said it to you. John 17:3: “This is eternal life. What is it? That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Application: Drink from the Fountain

Now, brethren, how I wish that each one of you would grab tightly to this truth this morning.

I say to you, along with the psalmist: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

I say to you, along with Jesus himself, this morning: “If you only knew the gift of God, and here it is, who asks you for a drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water.”

Brethren, do you have the Fountain of Living Water springing up inside of you all the way to eternal life? Or are you too busy drawing from the broken cisterns of the world and of sin?

You won’t stop drawing from the wells of pride and anger and unforgiveness and fear and laziness and greed. You won’t stop panting after the fleeting satisfaction of alcohol, drugs, sex, video games, movies, television.

You won’t stop being dismayed when the cisterns of marriage, children, work, school—they just don’t give you the satisfaction that you’re looking for.

Brethren, Jesus has definitively answered the question that was raised by the Samaritan woman—that doubting question. He is far greater than Jacob, and the water that he gives—in himself—is so much better and makes it so that you are never caught thirsty again, forever.

Even in the days of drought, even in the days of heat, even in the days of extreme pain and trial, Jeremiah 17 says: if you have God, if you have the Fountain of Life and Living Water, you will be like a well-watered tree because you’re not disconnected from the source. It’s always there. It’s always there for your refreshment, for your joy, for your life.

Brethren, we sing all the time that Jesus is better than life because he is our life. But do you believe that? Do you really believe that? Are you experiencing that?

“We sing all the time that Jesus is better than life because he is our life. But do you believe that?”

Do not settle for a dead religion where you affirm all the true ideas about God, but you never know God himself. You never experience God and never experience the abundant life of walking with him and just getting to know him.

Do you want abundant life? It’s there. It’s available to you. Jesus offers it to you today.

Believe in Jesus for real. Receive his spirit. Get to know him. Become one of the humble outsiders. Give up everything for his sake, and you will find the living water that both satisfies and saves forever.

That is a promise. That is guaranteed from God’s Bible today.

Jesus freely offers living water. Have you taken it? Every other cistern is broken and in reality it holds no water. But Jesus has the living water in the truest sense, and that water never fails.

Wonderful, wonderful truth. But the Samaritan woman doesn’t get it, not yet.

Look at verse 15. You can see that she’s still thinking on the earthly level. Well, next time we’ll see how Jesus redirects the conversation, gets her to understand who he really is, what he’s really offering, and what worship of God is really all about.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray.

Jesus, how wonderful you are. How satisfying you are. Lord, we think of Psalm 16.

What David was teaching us: that you are your people’s portion. You don’t just give things to your people, and that’s their portion. You are your people’s portion. You are the joyful inheritance. You are the lines that have fallen into pleasant places.

It is at your right hand that there are pleasures forever. You are the source of life and joy.

And God, we believe that. We’re so excited that you, like that Samaritan woman, had an encounter with us where you revealed yourself to us and we believed, and we began to experience that spring of the spirit inside of us.

But God, it is so easy to drift away, to somehow not drink from the spring that we have, and start to look at the other springs of the world and say, “Hey, that’s pretty good. Yeah, I’m going to try and find my satisfaction over there. Yeah, this is what’s going to secure me.”

And then becoming so surprised—becoming so surprised—when those springs turn out to be dry, when the water turns out to be stagnant, and when we find ourselves still thirsty.

Oh Lord, I don’t know everything that the people in our congregation are going through today, but I know this: I know that your word is true, and that if you say that those who believe in you have the kind of living water that satisfies in any circumstance, I know that it’s true for each person here this morning.

So God, I pray that they would see that. I pray that they would know that. By faith, they would take hold of your promise. They would drink your living water, and they would be satisfied.

Not just satisfying now, not just experience eternal life now, but that they would know that their eternal life is secure forever. We experience in part now, but the true satisfaction, the full satisfaction, is to come.

We will always have life because we have the living water of God.

Thank you, God. If there’s anyone here who’s never experienced this, who’s never known you, God, I pray that you would open their eyes today. You’d have an encounter with you just like we did, just like the Samaritan woman did.

They would repent and believe, and they’d find their all in you. Lord Jesus, glorify yourself. God, you are worthy of it. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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